USA Today

gets punked?

is fact checker?

see malkan USRTK

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USA TODAY EMPLOY PETITION PURGE PALANTIR

BIG TECH OVERSIGHT 8 26

Trump's "Authoritarian Takeover" of the Media, ABC Suing FCC & the Meta Trial: Jessica González

Trump's "Authoritarian Takeover" of the Media, ABC Suing FCC & the Meta Trial: Jessica González

Aug 19, 2026 Latest Shows

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de... We look at major media news with Jessica González, co-CEO of the advocacy organization Free Press. She discusses the landmark lawsuit against Meta for making its social media platforms addictive for young people, efforts to halt the Paramount-Warner Bros. megamerger, and Disney's lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission over what it calls the Trump administration's "retaliatory campaign" against the ABC television network. González says President Donald Trump's "authoritarian takeover attempt of our media system" must be opposed. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.

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an 1 24 note op ed

after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes, Trump's claim that the election was stolen from him was repeatedly debunked. And some of the debunking came software engineer/elections technology expert Ken Block.

Trump and his allies hired Block in the hope of convincing others that widespread voter fraud occurred, but Block found no such fraud. And Block's findings were used as evidence by the January 6 Select Committee in 2022.

Block, owner of Simpatico Voting Systems and author of the forthcoming book "Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data That Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections," revisits Trump's "steady diet of lies and innuendo" in an op-ed published by USA Today on January 2.

"Our findings have also been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith's federal investigation and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation in Georgia," Block explains. "Those e-mails and documents show that the voter data available to the campaign contained no evidence of large-scale voter fraud based on data mining and fraud analytics. More important, claims of voter fraud made by others were verified as false, including proof of why those claims were disproven."'

The election technolgy expert continues, "And yet, the cries that the election was lost or stolen due to voter fraud continue with no sign of stopping. Whether a stump speech, outrageous lawsuits like the so-called Kraken cases filed by Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani’s lies or the ongoing misguided efforts of people determined to prove the election was stolen, the constant drumbeat hardens people's hearts and minds to the truth about the 2020 election."

Block argues that while the United States' voting system has some room for improvement, Trump and Giuliani's lies about the 2020 election continue to do the United States an incredible disservice.

"A better use of time, money and energy would be to address systemic weaknesses in our election systems — such as the distressing lack of national election infrastructure to enforce election integrity [eg crappy machine and ltd hours in poor hoods?], destructive practices to our elections such as gerrymandering, and leveling the playing field so that our elections become fairer and more competitive," Block writes. "If voter fraud had impacted the 2020 election, it would already have been proven. Maintaining the lies undermines faith in the foundation of our democracy."

*Ken Block's full USA Today op-ed is available at this link.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/spanish-language-media/spanish-speakers-are-being-targeted-conspiracy-theories-about-climate-change

spanish-language TikTok creators have been pushing fringe conspiracy theories that argue against the existence of man-made climate change, proposing that climate change is a myth created by supposed elites to bring about the so-called Great Reset – a conspiracy theory that claims climate lockdowns will be used to strip individuals of their rights and possessions.

This comes as record heat waves are affecting the entire planet.

Misinformation about climate change on TikTok occurs despite the platform’s moderation policies, which prohibit “climate change misinformation that undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as content denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it.” Once again, non-English language content that violates platform policy is flying under the radar, spreading damaging misinformation in what is becoming a disturbing trend.

Media Matters found several Spanish-language posts on TikTok denying climate change, insisting it is a hoax made to impose oppressive or even lethal initiatives led by NGOs, like the UN's Agenda 21 and its much newer Agenda 2030, which sets a series of sustainable development goals for 2030. Agenda 2030 conspiracy theories, which are popular in Spanish, are often conflated with the Great Reset, which is also used to deny the need for action on climate change. Other theories include references to a secret weather control program known as HAARP and even flat earth theory. [vid]

other TikToks take clips from news programs where a supposed expert or study is used to sow doubt about the established facts of climate change. One clip had a guest who claimed, “There is no clear evidence that us, human beings, are capable of changing the earth’s climate,” but that what she has clearly seen is “President Biden asleep at the inauguration of the COP26.”Further, several of these news clips were sourced from Russian propaganda outlet RTand despite TikTok’s policy of labeling state affiliated news sources, the videos remained unlabeled – a common discrepancy between English and Spanish content on other major platforms as well.

Other common criticisms of climate science and action come in the form of testimonials or complaints from individuals who deny the existence of climate change without presenting evidence. Additionally, attacks on climate activist Greta Thunberg garner thousands of views and draw false equivalencies between her qualifications and scientists who deny climate change.

Conspiracy theories are increasingly crossing from the fever swamps of Spanish-language media like Telegram onto mainstream social media platforms and news networks like :{Americano Media:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:.For instance, on the July 11 edition of Battleground Americano, host Jesús Márquez claimed that a so-called “New World Order” and the elites seek to manipulate all countries worldwide through international institutions, that they aim to “enslave the majority of the population,” and that “climate change is an excuse to drive changes that favor the elite.”

This makes it all the more likely that the growing Latino electorate will become the target of this type of misinformation in the coming election cycle.

ref usatoday

the claim: The United Nations will establish a 'new world order' under its Agenda 21/2030 Mission Goals

Is a "new world order" part of the UN's plan? There is evidence that the claim has circulated on social media for years, but a May repost by Facebook user Vernon Adkinson recently went viral.

Over 20 goals comprise the "new world order" the United Nations will focus on as part of its "Agenda 21/2030 Mission Goals," according to the claim. Items on the agenda include one world government; a single cashless currency; government-owned and controlled schools, colleges and universities and an end to single-family homes.

"THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY," Adkinson insisted in the caption. "If you don’t believe it, a simple google search will take you to the U.N. website where you can access the document and read it for yourself. It is amazing (not) how well the Covid 19 plandemic ties in with Agenda 21/2030."

Adkinson did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.

What are the U.N.'s Agenda 21 and its Agenda 2030 mission goals?

Agenda 21 was one of several agenda items for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment & Development in Rio de Janeiro.

The agenda included 31 items addressing global social and economic dimensions; conservation and resource management; role strengthening for women, children and workers, as well as proposed methods of implementation.

Items listed in the "new world order" do not appear in Agenda 21. For instance, there is no mention of currency. Terms like "military" and "sovereignty" also do not appear, though both are referenced in the "new world order."

more:'No one is safe until everyone is safe': Vaccine nationalism threatens global coronavirus effort

However, there are brief mentions of some of the items from the claim. The term "central banking" is present in reference to capacity-building in developing countries; it is not described as a "world central bank." Property rights are also addressed, regarding protecting women's rights to property, but not an end to all privately owned property.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2015 that is focused around achieving 17 goals within 15 years:

End all poverty in all forms everywhere
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Reduce inequality within and among countries
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (acknowledging the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

Terms like "one world," "currency," "military," "family unit," "5G," "private transportation," "air travel," and "synthetic drugs" are not mentioned in the 2030 Agenda, though they are listed in the "new world order."

There are references to equal rights and access to land and other forms of property for poor and vulnerable men and women, full and permanent sovereignty over natural and economic resources for individual states and universal health coverage to include affordable vaccines for all. The 2030 agenda does not mention global sovereignty over these items as the claim suggests.

Is the United Nations planning to institute a 'new world order' by 2030?

There is no evidence that the U.N. will establish "one world government" along with associated implications, such as a single military and currency.

Daniela Gross, a spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General, told USA TODAY in an email that the claim is entirely fabricated.

"No, this is false. This is not a genuine UN document," Gross wrote.

The author of a 2014 report on Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, Heidi Beirichm, told AFP Australia in June that the "new world order" claim is a far-right hoax.

"That post is filled with all the bogus claims the far right has made against (Agenda 21) for a long time now,” Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said.

Moreover, Agenda 21 and the 2030 Agenda are not legally binding. The latter is subject to each country's commitment. A frequently asked questions page states that "implementation and success will rely on countries’ own sustainable development policies, plans and programmes."

Similarly, Beirich described Agenda 21 as a "perfectly sensible planning paper, a nonbinding statement of intent aimed at dealing with sustainability on an increasingly crowded planet," in her 2014 conspiracy theory report for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Our rating: False

We rate this claim FALSE because it is not supported by our research. A claim suggesting the UN's Agenda 21 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will establish "one world government" has been debunked by experts. A representative from the UN said that the agenda is not a genuine agency document.

Our fact-check sources:

United Nations Conference on Environment & Development Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992, "AGENDA 21"
United Nations General Assembly, "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"
AFP Australia, "Hoax circulates about United Nations' 'mission goals'"
Southern Poverty Law Center, "Agenda 21: The UN, Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory"
The United Nations, "The Sustainable Development Agenda"

morano gmail 5 23 newsbusters MRC

uSA Today is raising the eco-warrior cry over the new “battleground” in the fight against the climate bogeyman: Americans’ lawns.

No, we’re not kidding.

The liberal newspaper doom mongered how “[g]as leaf blowers and lawn mowers are shockingly bad for the planet” and praised how “[b]ans are beginning to spread.” USA Today immediately kicked off its nutty April 30 climate agitprop by making it seem like the fight against lawnmowers was a noble crusade against Thanos’ minions in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame (2019): “Your lawn may be the next climate change battleground. And parks. And playgrounds.”

The newspaper ludicrously propagandized that “[r]egulators and clean-air advocates are increasingly eyeing the pollution emitted by small gasoline engines used to power lawn mowers and leaf blowers as they seek to blunt climate change.” The newspaper apparently found this nonstory so important that it plastered the item on the front page of its May 1 print edition. [Climate avengers, assemble!]

twt no lnx

in other words: sure, small business owners may have their profit margins sliced significantly, but at least it’s in the name of fighting ManBearPig. The newspaper praised California, Denver, Colorado and Washington, D.C. as crusaders leading the regulatory fight against the supposed lawn mower threat. “Here we go again,” Climate Depot Founder Marc Morano said in comments to MRC Business. “Every day Americans wake up to find that some new unelected bureaucracy or bureaucrat has determined that in order to save the planet, a major modern tool or convenience is going to be banned.” Morano blasted USA Today for pushing woke, eco agitprop:

Forcing Americans to pay three times higher for electric equipment in order to save the planet and meet climate goals -- is unacceptable.

All Americans need to know about these restrictions, said JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy, is that “the government can still use gas-powered blowers but residents and their lawn care companies can't. It's obviously not about air quality.” Rather, Milloy stated, “it's about left-wing government asserting more and more mindless control over our lives. Even if it was true that gas-powered lawn equipment somehow affected air quality or were too noisy, I'd rather suffer that than rogue government.”

Of course, USA Today never mentioned anything about the existence of homeowner association [HOA(s)] regulations that commonly regulate household landscaping across many communities in the U.S. HOA-USA.com estimated that there are currently 370,000 HOAs in the U.S. representing over 40 million households.

One of the common HOA violations that should be avoided, said BankRate.com, involved landscaping.“HOAs are responsible for the community’s curb appeal, so expect yours to have rules about overgrown lawns, weeds and unkempt exteriors.” So by USA Today’s logic, it’s either Americans living or operating in HOA communities pay a small fortune to upgrade their landscaping equipment or risk a possible HOA fine.

"Will Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore, John Kerry, and UN officials give up private jet flying,"Morano questioned. "Or is it just ordinary Americans who have to give up gas leaf blowers, gas stoves, and gas lawn mowers?"

Conservatives are under attack. Contact USA Today Interim Editor-in-Chief Michael McCarter at EIC@usatoday.com and demand his publication quit targeting Americans’ landscaping equipment.

Marc Morano

Business

Global Warming

Pollution

ESG

USA Today

Environment

Using USA Today as an outlet

In February 2017, two dozen health, environmental, labor and public interest groups wrote to the editors of USA Today with concerns that the paper regularly publishes science columns authored by ACSH staff, including Campbell, without disclosing ACSH’s funding from multiple corporate interests. ACSH Vice President of Scientific Affairs Alex Berezow, who co-authored Campbell’s 2012 book, remains on the USA Today Board of Contributors buthis biothere does not disclose his leadership staff position at ACSH.

:{Newsweek and :{USA Today Need Standards for Opinion Writers:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::{,:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: by Stacy Malkan, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (2.2.2018)
:{Public Interest Groups to USA Today: Dump Corporate Front Group Science Columns:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, letter to editors (2.23.2017)
:{USA Today Fail: Trump Science Article Written By Corporate Front Group:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, by Stacy Malkan, Alternet (6.1.2016)
:{The :{American Council on Science and Health is a Corporate Front Group:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::{,:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: USRTK fact shee

ref 1

no lnx pix

FEBRUARY 2, 2018

Newsweek and USA Today Need Standards for Opinion Writers

STACY MALKAN

Newsweek: The Campaign for Organic Foods Is a Deceitful, Expensive Scam

Why are Newsweek and USA Today so willing to let special interests mislead their readers? Clear standards are needed for disclosing conflicts of interest.

Facts don’t matter in commentaries printed by Newsweek, so long as the writer “seems genuine.” That’s the takeaway from a troubling email exchange with Newsweek opinion editor Nicholas Wapshott in response to concerns and questions I raised about a recent commentary attacking the organic industry.

Newsweek: The Campaign for Organic Food Is a Deceitful, Expensive Scam [trump pix?]

This Newsweek article (1/19/18) doesn’t mention that its author has been exposed as putting his name on Monsanto-written articles—but it does spend several paragraphs attacking the reporter who exposed him.

The organic hit piece in Newsweek (1/19/18) carried the byline of Henry I. Miller, who lost his platform at Forbes last year after the New York Times (8/1/17) revealed that Miller had published an article in Forbes under his own name that was actually written by Monsanto.

In his recent Newsweek article, Miller spent several paragraphs attacking Danny Hakim, the New York Times reporter who revealed that ghostwriting scandal; but Miller didn’t disclose to readers either the scandal or his collaborations with Monsanto.

Yet Monsanto’s fingerprints were all over Miller’s Newsweek article, as I reported (US Right to Know, 1/23/18). Miller used pesticide industry sources to make false claims about organic farming, and attacked people who were named on a target list that had been developed by Monsanto and Jay Byrne, Monsanto’s former director of corporate communications, who was quoted in Miller’s piece with no mention of the Monsanto affiliation.

None of this appears to bother Newsweek opinion editor Nicholas Wapshott, according to an on-the-record email exchange.

Miller ‘Flatly Denies’ Facts

On January 22, I emailed Wapshott to raise concerns that Newsweek continues to publish Miller’s commentaries without disclosing his relationship with Monsanto, and asked if he was aware that:

1) The New York Times reported in August that Miller had been caught publishing an article ghostwritten by Monsanto under his own name in Forbes, in violation of Forbes’ policy. Forbes ended its relationship with Miller and deleted all his articles from the site.

2) A 2015 internal Monsanto PR plan (recently released by lawyers involved in litigation against Monsanto) lists “Engage Henry Miller” as one of its first action items.

3) A source Miller used in his Newsweek article, Jay Byrne, is a former Monsanto employee (not identified as such). According to emails I reported here, Byrne worked with Monsanto to set up a front group of “independent” academics, secretly funded by industry, who attacked the organic industry as a “marketing scam,” the same theme in Miller’s Newsweek article.

4) Miller has a long history of partnering with—and pitching his PR services to—corporations that need help convincing the public their products aren’t dangerous and don’t need to be regulated.

Wapshott responded, “Hi Stacy, I understand that you and Miller have a long history of dispute on this topic. He flatly denies your assertions. Nicholas”

Henry I. Miller: “He seems genuine.”

I wrote back to ask for clarification.

Hi Nicholas, to clarify:

Miller denies he published a column ghostwritten by Monsanto under his own name in Forbes and that Forbes has since deleted all his articles? (NYT story,Retraction Watch story)

Miller denies the Monsanto’s PR plan to address the IARC cancer rating of glyphosate lists “Engage Henry Miller” on page 2, item 3?

Miller denies that Jay Byrne, the former Monsanto employee not identified as such in his Newsweek article, was involved with setting up Academics Review as a front group? (Byrne has not denied writing these emails.)

Miller and I have disagreed yes, we were on opposite sides of a political campaign to label GMOs, but the above facts are facts, and provable. Do you think it’s fair to your readers to continue to publish his work without disclosing his ties to Monsanto?

Wapshott responded, “I think so. I have met Miller and he seems genuine. And I find it hard to believe that his flat denial is a lie. We would need a full trial to determine the truth and those resources are, thank goodness, beyond our means.”

Jumbled Mix of Conflict Disclosures

I wrote back to Wapshott once more, pointing out that a trial is not necessary in the Miller case, since the facts have been established by reporting in the New York Times and corroborated by Forbes’ spokesperson Mia Carbonell, who told the Times:

All contributors to Forbes.com sign a contract requiring them to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and only publish content that is their own original writing. When it came to our attention that Mr. Miller violated these terms, we removed his blog from Forbes.com and ended our relationship with him.

Does Newsweek have a similar policy to require writers to disclose potential conflicts of interest and use only their own writing?

Newsweek editors have yet to respond to my query about disclosure policies. But the problem of weak, confused or non-existent conflict-of-interest disclosures is widespread in the media.

For a 2015 article in CJR (11/23/15), Paul Thacker asked 18 media organizations that cover science to describe their disclosure standards for both journalists and the sources they use in their stories, and 14 responded.

“The responses present a jumbled mix of policies,” Thacker wrote.

Some draw a bright line—preventing journalists from having financial ties to any outside sources. Others allow some expenses and speaking fees. To complicate matters further, some organizations have written rules, while others consider incidents on a case-by-case basis. Standards advocated by professional societies also seem to differ.

Tamar Haspel (Photo: Gretchen Ertl/Washington Post)

Washington Post food columnist Tamar Haspel is allowed to take money from agribusiness groups, because she’s not a “reporter.” (Photo: Gretchen Ertl/Washington Post)

Some outlets apply different standards to reporters and columnists, as I learned when I asked why Washington Post food columnist Tamar Haspel can take speaking fees from agrichemical industry groups while writing about that industry as part of her regular column beat (FAIR.org, 10/28/15). Reporters at Washington Post aren’t allowed to do that, but in the case of columnists, the editor decides.

It’s all very murky. And some outlets are clearly crossing a bright line by publishing the views of groups and people who work with corporations to promote pro-industry science views without telling readers about the corporate collaboration.

Henry Miller’s attack on organic food in Newsweek is one example. Another is USA Today’s regular publication of science columns from the American Council on Science and Health, a front group for the tobacco, chemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and other industries seeking to discredit scientific information about the harm of their products.

USA Today Lends Platform to Corporate Front Group

In February 2017, two dozen health, environmental, labor and public interest groups wrote to the editors of USA Today asking the paper to stop publishing science columns by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), or at least provide full disclosures about who funds the group.

Leaked financial documents reveal that ACSH solicits money from corporations to defend and promote their products; for example, ACSH spins science on fracking, e-cigarettes, toxic cosmetics and agrichemical industry products, and solicits funding from those industries in exchange. Recent reporting establishes that ACSH works with Monsanto on messaging campaigns.

“USA Today should not be helping this group promote its false identity as a credible, independent source on science,” the two dozen groups wrote to the editors. “Your readers deserve accurate information about what and whom this group represents, as they reflect on the content of the columns.”

USA Today: Call junk science by its rightful name: Fake news

An ironic headline (USA Today, 7/21/18) for a piece written by a representative of a corporate front group.

Nearly a year later, USA Today is still publishing columns by ACSH staff and still failing to notify its readers about ACSH’s funding from corporations whose agenda they promote.

In an email response dated March 1, 2017, USA Today editorial page editor Bill Sternberg explained:

To the best of our knowledge, all of the columns in question were authored or co-authored by Alex Berezow, a longtime member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Mr. Berezow has written some 25 op-eds for us since 2011, and we consider him to be a credible voice on scientific issues. He holds a PhD in microbiology from the University of Washington, was the founding editor of RealClearScience and has contributed to a number of mainstream outlets.

Berezow is now a senior fellow at ACSH, and his “@USAToday contributor” status appears in his bio on Twitter, where he frequently attacks critics of the pesticide industry, for example in this recent vile tweet featuring a sexually graphic illustration of a nurse giving a patient a coffee enema.

Does USA Today really want to be associated with this type of science communication?

Integrity and Transparency in Science Reporting

News outlets can do better than these examples at Newsweek and USA Today, and they must do better. They can start by refusing to publish columns by corporate front groups and PR surrogates who pose as independent science thinkers.

They can implement clear and strong policies that require all columnists and journalists to disclose potential conflicts of interest for themselves and the sources they cite in their work.

At a time when the public is questioning the legitimacy of the news media, it is more important than ever for all publications to follow the highest standards of journalistic ethics and serve the public with as much truth and transparency as possible.

This article originally appeared on the website of US Right to Know (1/31/18), where Stacy Malkanis co-founder and co-director.

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ref 2

https://usrtk.org/news-releases/public-interest-groups-to-usa-today-ditch-corporate-front-group-science-columns/

2/17

following letter was sent by more than two dozen health, environmental, labor and public interest groups to the editors of USA Today expressing concerns that the paper has been publishing science columns by members of the American Council on Science and Health, without identifying that group as a corporate front group with a history of spinning science for corporate benefactors. For more information, see our fact sheet on thecorporate funding of the American Council on Science and Health.

Update: As of June 2019, ACSH’s Vice President of Scientific Affairs Alex Berezow is still listed as an opinion columnist on the USA Today website with no disclosure of Berezow’s leadership staff position at ACSH.

February 9, 2017

Dear Patty Michalski, Editor in Chief, USA Today:

We are writing to express our concern that USA Today continues to publish columns written by members of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a corporate-funded group with a long history of promoting corporate agendas that are at odds with mainstream science. USA Today should not be helping this group promote its false identity as a credible, independent source on science. Your readers deserve accurate information about what and whom this group represents, as they reflect on the content of the columns.

These are no idle allegations. Many of the undersigned health, environmental, labor and public interest groups have been tracking ACSH’s work over the years. We have documented instances in which the group has worked to undermine climate change science, and deny the health threats associated with various products, including second-hand smoke, fracking, pesticides and industrial chemicals – all without being transparent about its corporate backers.

We note that financial documents obtained by Mother Jones show that ACSH has received funding from tobacco, chemical, pharmaceutical and oil corporations. Public interest groups have reported that ACSH received funding from the Koch Foundations between 2005-2011, and released internal documents showing that ACSH solicited $100,000 from Syngenta in 2009 to write favorably about its product atrazine – a donation that was to be “separate and distinct from general operating support Syngenta has been so generously providing over the years.”

At a time when the public is questioning the legitimacy of the news media, we believe it is vital for publications such as USA Today to follow the highest standards of journalistic ethics and serve the public with as much truth and transparency as possible.

We respectfully ask you to refrain from publishing further columns authored by members of the American Council on Science and Health, or at the very least require that the individuals identify the organization accurately as a corporate-funded advocacy group.

Sincerely,

Alaska Community Action on Toxics

Beyond Toxics

Breast Cancer Action

Breast Cancer Fund

Californians for Pesticide Reform

Center for Biological Diversity

Center for Food Safety

Citizens’ Environmental Coalition

Clean and Healthy New York

Community Science Institute

Empire State Consumer Project

Farmworker Association of Florida

Friends of the Earth – US

Greenpeace

HavenBMedia

Healthy Building Network

Health Care Without Harm

Learning Disabilities Association of Maine

Made Safe

Organic Consumers Association

Pesticide Action Network North America

Real Food Media

The 5 Gyres Institute

US Right to Know

Vermont Public Interest Research Group

Women’s Voices for the Earth

Ann Blake, PhD, Environmental & Public Health Consulting

Josh Freeman, MD (Emeritus Chair of Family Medicine, University of Kansas School of Medicine)

Matthew Anderson, MD (Associate Professor, Dept. of Family and Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center)

Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP (Adjunct Faculty, School of Community Health, Portland State University; Board of Advisors, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility)

===

ref 3 wayback 2016?

USA Today fell to a new low in science and election coverage recently with a column speculating about presidential candidate Donald Trump’s science agenda, written by two members of a corporate front group that was not identified as a corporate front group.

The column, “Would President Trump Be a Science Guy?”, was authored by Hank Campbell andAlex Berezow of the American Council on Science and Health, a group that promotes various corporate agendas via its science commentaries while secretly receiving significant funding from corporations, according to leaked documents reported by Mother Jones.

ACSH has made many indefensible and incorrect statements about science over the years – for example, the group has claimed there is no scientific consensus on global warming, that “fracking doesn’t pollute water or air,” and that “there is no evidence” that the chemical BPA is harmful to health.

A paper trail further suggests that ACSH works quid pro quo for its corporate funders. In one email from 2009, ACSH staff solicited a $100,000 donation from chemical giant Syngenta to produce a paper and “consumer friendly booklet” about pesticide exposures to help defend Syngenta’s pesticide atrazine. The donation was to be “separate and distinct from general operating support that Syngenta has been so generously providing over the years,” according to the email.

In 2011, ACSH released a book written by Jon Entine, along with an abbreviated position paper, about the public’s “irrational fear of chemicals,” featuring atrazine as a primary focus.

For more see: [Why You Can’t Trust the American Council on Science and Health]

None of this context was apparent to readers of USA Today’s Trump Science column written by ACSH president Hank Campbell and ACSH senior fellow Alex Berezow.

The main point of the column seems to be to plug their pro-industry websites and promote themselves as thinkers of science. Without many facts to illuminate Trump’s science agenda, the authors are left to engage in navel-gazing speculation – asking us to “imagine Trump championing a moon colony” because of “his fondness for real estate.”

A second big problem with the column – besides the fact that it promotes the science ideas of a corporate front group that isn’t identified as such – is how it normalizes the notion that it’s no big deal to have a major party presidential candidate whose policy ideas are so opaque or hidden that media outlets are reduced to runaway speculation just to have a story on the topic.

Let’s see (belly gaze), will science get a “funding bonanza” from President Trump, or more of that unpleasant vaccine talk? We’ll just have to cross our fingers!

This type of speculation is not normal; it’s not acceptable. USA Today’s readers don’t need to hear theories from corporate front groups about how Trump might view science. They deserve to have these questions put to candidate Trump himself until he answers them.

They deserve to read not one more story about Trump that isn’t grounded in facts and serious journalism about his policy positions – and especially not a self-promotional exercise from a corporate front group disguised as a USA Today column.

Stacy Malkan is co-director of U.S. Right to Know, a food industry research group that voluntarily discloses its funding. She is the author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry and also co-founded the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Follow her on Twitter @stacymalkan.

===

desmog covid deniers koch:

Economic lockdowns may have helped initially to slow the coronavirus, but longer-term are ineffective and counterproductive. It is long past time to get back to work.

David Wojick. “USA Today pushes climate panic,” CFACT, May 10

I recently described the all too often case where extreme computer modelling results feed the media into then feeding a public panic. A cascade of mindless fear. See my https://www.cfact.org/2020/04/27/tale-of-two-panics-covid-climate/.

USA Today has now provided a perfect example of promoting model based panic.

Here is their panicky title: “Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns”

Three billion people will live where humans cannot survive? Seriously? Will they become billions of climate refugees? That is the absurd idea, right?

USA Today is a trusted source for many people, but here they publish pure nonsensical alarmist speculation as accepted fact. Note that the headline does not say “study suggests”. No it is “study warns” as though this nonsense were real and something to act on. Perhaps a ten year lockdown is called for, or even greater green sacrifices.

The article merely mentions in passing that this is just another (hyperbolic) computer result, nowhere even hinting that this is not something even remotely real. There is no hint of scientific caution. No alternative view, no questioning analysis or opinion, nothing. The entire article is written as though this nonsense were somehow an established fact.

“Is the coronavirus lockdown the future environmentalists want?” CFACT video featuring Marc Morano and Heartland Institute president James Taylor,April 30

James Taylor: [00:13:06] This is a very perilous time for freedom. Back seven months ago, we were told that we could expect up to 2 million deaths from Coronavirus. And fortunately, those models appear to have been greatly overstated because now we’re being told perhaps 60 thousand, maybe a hundred thousand, still quite a tragedy, but nowhere near the 2 million deaths. When those models made those predictions, it really gave me pause because I know how in the climate change debate people program models and the models are only as good, The outcome and predictions are only as accurate as the assumptions that go into the programing and for climate change. [00:13:47]

James Taylor: [00:14:06] So when we saw the models predicting such a great death toll, I was hoping that the models would be just as wrong as they are for climate change. And fortunately, they have been. We were told at the time that we needed these lockdowns, shelter in place, etc. because of such a high death toll. And it wasn’t true that these impositions on our freedoms were going to reduce the number of deaths it would merely make it would merely flatten the curve in the sense that we wouldn’t have an overwhelming number of people inundating our health care facilities and our medical professionals at the very beginning of the crisis. We were told that we’d still have the same amount of cases, the same amount of deaths, except that we wouldn’t have that spike in the beginning, which we couldn’t handle. Well, the curve has been flattened. We appear to be on the downside of the slope. And yet those restrictions on our freedom are still in place. [00:14:56]

James Taylor: [00:18:20] On two separate occasions, we had World Health Organization officials making outrageous statements about climate change regarding Coronavirus. In one, the statement was that climate change may make current or future pandemics worse. From everything we know, influenza, which is what we feared for, the next great pandemic. We know that influenza is assisted by cold temperatures. Warm temperatures inhibit it spread and make pandemics less severe. Coronavirus, we’re not sure if the same will occur. It’s quite possible that warmer temperatures will have the same impact. At worst, it will be neutral. It’s an outrageous statement for the World Health Organization to make apparently just to pander to climate activists. [00:18:59]

James Taylor: [00:24:34] So the long and short of it is this: if humans are causing some warming to the planet and if we have earlier summers, early arrivals of summer and later arrivals of fall, this is something that inhibits the spread of Coronavirus. It’s going to reduce the death toll and it’s something is a complete opposite of what we’re hearing in the media. And it’s very concerning that folks in the media are so intent on spinning a narrative regardless of what happens in the real world, that they will twist and turn 180 degrees, what’s happening in the real world compared to what they’re reporting. But the long and short of it is this. If there’s going to be any impact of warming temperatures, of global warming, of climate change on Coronavirus or other epidemics and pandemics is going to make them less frequent and less severe. [00:25:25]

Marc Morano: [00:45:27] Let’s turn the argument around on them. Instead of them using this and AOC, as I mentioned earlier, is cheering the collapse of oil prices and everything else. Let’s turn it around. The idea of green living is not that is actually antithetical to virus panic and viral fears. Well, we use the virus fears to oppose their rules. We’ve always been told, you know, if a driver is going to a lone driver in a car, driving, commuting to and from work is bad for the planet and polluting. Well, given the age of virus scares and we’re all supposed to be terrified of all these viruses. Now, why would you want to pack on mass transit that’s green approved? Why would you want to take the subway system? Why would you want to be on the commuter train when you could take your glorious fossil fuel car in isolation away from the virus? So I would argue. Let’s turn the fears around, you know, where necessary to throw it back at ’em. And it was actually an article was actually article by Michael Barone recently called Anti Pandemic Rules, the opposite of anti climate change rules. Let’s use that against them because they want everyone living in crowded urban areas. I remember one climate activist years ago wanted everyone wanted to design cities after termite nests. The idea is to have everything just centrally planned, perfectly smart, smart planned out. If you now look at it in the lens of the virus scare, which they are promoting shamelessly, that doesn’t fly. So let’s use their own rhetoric against them. [00:46:53]

Paul Driessen.“Let’s quarantine some fake corona and energy news,” CFACT, April 6.

Life-saving modern technologies, hospitals, labs, drugs and homes didn’t just happen. They are the product of mining, logging, roads, drilling, modern agriculture, communication and transportation, and especially fossil fuel and nuclear energy – which enable innovation to thrive, help keep Nature’s wrath and fury at safer distances, and helped extend average American life spans from 40 in 1800 to 47 in 1900 and 78 today. How and why this happened is an amazing saga. The story of penicillin is just as fascinating.

The Guardian has it completely backward. Utilizing Earth’s surface and subsurface bounties – God’s blessings – did not unleash COVID-19 and other viruses, bacteria and diseases. Doing so helped save us from pestilence and starvation that have ravaged humanity throughout history. It still does today.

[…]

Imagine what would happen if abundant, reliable, affordable heat and electricity from fossil, nuclear and hydroelectric were replaced by limited, intermittent, weather-dependent, expensive wind, solar and battery power. The impacts on our healthcare and living standards would be horrific. Try to picture life in African villages and cities, where electricity, clean water, sanitation and healthcare are still almost nonexistent.

Imagine what our planet would look like, if we had to replace relatively few fossil, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants with millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels and billions of backup batteries, sprawling across hundreds of millions of acres. We would have to open or expand thousands of mines, to provide the metals and minerals required to manufacture all that pseudo-renewable energy.

[…]

One has to wonder. If we can close restaurants and parks, and ban gatherings of more than ten people, can’t we quarantine nonsense about disease, mining, and wild ecosystems disrupted because we haven’t sufficiently adopted “clean, green, renewable, sustainable” wind, solar, battery and biofuel alternatives?

If we can’t quarantine nonsense, can’t our print and electronic media at least refrain from propagating it?

Norm Kalmanovitch. “A more robust way of predicting COVID-19 than models,” CFACT, April 4.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/voters-should-be-wary-of-usa-todays-false-balance-on-election-2020

no lnx grafx

voters should be wary of USA Today’s false balance on Election 2020

Written by Julie Hollar / FAIR September 18, 2020

One thing readers can count on every election season is false balance in the press (FAIR.org, 12/9/16, 10/3/12; Extra!, 11–12/08; FAIR.org, 9/30/04), and despite the current threats to democracy (FAIR.org, 9/15/20) that one might hope would lead journalists to up their game, this year is no different.

Case in point: USA Today‘s front-page piece on Monday (9/14/20) with the remarkable headline, “With 50 Days Till Election Day, Voters ‘Anxious,’ Wary of Trump, Biden Alike.” On the web, the headline ran: “‘Anxious, Fearful, Angry.’ At 50 days Out to Election Day, Many Voters Are Wary of Both Trump and Biden.”

USA Today: 'Anxious, fearful, angry.' At 50 days out to Election Day, many voters are wary of both Trump and Biden

USA Today‘s headline (9/14/20) elides a key difference between the two candidates: Generally, more people like Biden than dislike him, which hasn’t been true of Trump since January 2017.

“It’s 50 days until voters cast their ballots for president, and Americans are on edge,” the article, by Ledyard King and Phillip M. Bailey, began:

It’s not just that they have been cooped up at home to avoid a deadly contagion. Or that some downtown areas have been wracked with unrest fueled by protests over police violence and racism. Or that Americans are facing financial hardships because of the pandemic. Many voters view the White House race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as crucial to America’s future. But while the president’s supporters are more enthusiastic than Biden’s, many voters grappling with multiple crises are unimpressed and uninspired by the choice they will face on November 3.

This framing clearly implies that there’s no clear answer at the voting booth for “many” people; the headline directly suggests that “voters” are equally wary of both candidates.

No one disputes that there is an enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden supporters. But the idea that the choice seems like a toss-up to most people, and that the general sentiment in the country is one of equal wariness toward both candidates, is much harder to defend. Biden’s favorability ratings have consistently been much higher than Trump’s, and Biden has led national polling averages by a minimum of 4 percentage points (currently he’s averaging almost 6 points ahead) for the last several months. And while anxiety does dominate this election year, Biden supporters are much more anxious than Trump supporters—which is hardly surprising, given Trump’s clear efforts to subvert the election (FAIR.org, 9/15/20).

Real Clear Politics: 2020 Favorability Ratings

It’s misleading to describe voters as being equally wary of these two candidates (Real Clear Politics, 9/17/20).

You get a hint at the problem with the article in the line about protest: Are Americans on edge because there has been unrest in some downtowns—or because of the conditions of police violence and racism that have spurred that unrest? USA Today seems to be talking about a particular kind of reaction, had by a particular subset of people.

And in fact, despite referring to “Americans”—and the slightly narrower “voters”—multiple times in the headline and first few paragraphs, the article soon reveals that it’s actually talking about neither of the above. The anxiety referred to in the headline, it turns out, comes from a characterization of voters in swing states who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016—not exactly a representative group.

The paper then offers quotes from several “undecided voters” from swing states that they interviewed, including such statements as, “I can’t with good conscience say that I have an educated enough decision to vote either way. You constantly have to filter through the fighting to hear what they’re actually trying to say.” The reporters return to that voters’ words to conclude the piece: “Hopefully, we’ll hear more about what they actually plan on doing [in the debates]” she said. “And less about how much they hate each other.”

Interviewing undecided voters is one of journalists’ favorite election season pastimes. It’s not an irrelevant angle, though corporate reporters tend to overemphasize the white, conservative-leaning and rural swing voter to the exclusion of other crucial groups that might decide the election (FAIR.org, 5/20/14). But you have to wonder if people would remain so undecided if news media used more front-page real estate to cover candidates’ plans than to publish uninformed opinions about those candidates.

And it’s important that the obsession with swing state voters—while, again, justified to some extent, because of the way our Electoral College makes many voters’ opinions largely inconsequential—doesn’t so cloud reporters’ judgment that they use those voters to stand in for “Americans” as a whole. By doing so, outlets like USA Today overstate Trump’s support and create the impression of a balance that doesn’t exist.

no lnx pix twt

https://www.thewrap.com/usa-today-drops-columnist-cheri-jacobus-tweet-convicted-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein/

USA Today Drops Columnist Cheri Jacobus After Tweet About Convicted Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein (Exclusive)

“Our editors let Jacobus know that she would no longer be writing for USA TODAY,” a spokesperson for the paper tells TheWrap

Jon Levine | July 20, 2018

Cheri Jacobus

USA has dropped columnist Cheri Jacobus after the the political strategist and frequent TV pundit insulted Republican consultant and Trump ally Michael Caputo’s daughters and suggested that they be used at “parties” by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Our editors in the opinion section became aware of the tweet by freelance columnist Cheri Jacobus just after noon today,” a spokesperson for the company told TheWrap Thursday evening.

“An hour later after researching the issue, our editors let Jacobus know that she would no longer be writing for USA TODAY,” the spokesperson added. “We have asked her to remove the USA TODAY affiliation from her bio.”

[Also Read:

After Sam Seder Returns to MSNBC, Jeffrey Lord Asks, What About Me?]

By Friday morning, Jacobus — who once proudly boasted of her affiliation with USA Today in her Twitter profile — had removed any mention of the paper.

Also on Friday, The Hill moved to sever its ties with Jacobus as a columnist as well. “She was a contributor until February and no longer is,” a rep for the Washington, D.C.-based site told TheWrap. “The Hill has no plans to publish her in the future.”

Jacobus offered an explanation for her provocative online statements. “My tweet was in response to his attacks on me,” Jacobus told TheWrap in a statement which also accused Caputo of harassing her with tweets urging her to commit suicide.

In the original tweet from Thursday — which still remained live on Twitter at press time — Jacobus got personal with fellow Republican Caputo: “Are your daughters ugly like you? Or can Trump use them at the Epstein parties so they can survive when you’re broke, bitter, along and in prison for treason?”

Epstein is a reference to Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier and Bill Clinton mega-donor who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from an underage girl and served 13 months in custody.

[Also Read:

Donald Trump Advisor Out After Tweeting 'Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead']

The barb came as part of a series of back and forths between the Caputo and Jacobus, which swiftly became intensely personal. But Jacobus took it a bit further. In another response, which also remains live, she seemed to suggest that Caputo’s “illegitimate” daughter commit suicide.

The tweets sparked a swift backlash, particularly in conservative media, with Caputo himself leading the charge and demanding USA Today take action.

“I’m sure it’s totally normal for one of your columnists to Tweet suggesting the rape of toddler girls. Right?” he said. The remarks were also taken up by Internet provocateurs including Mike Cernovich, leading to thousands more harassing tweets toward the paper.

.@usatodayopinion I’m sure it’s totally normal for one of your columnists to Tweet suggesting the rape of toddler girls. Right? pic.twitter.com/dmTRN6yLbI

— Michael Caputo (@MichaelRCaputo) July 19, 2018

Jacobus, a #NeverTrump Republican, is most well known for losing a $4 million defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump in December 2017.

Jacobus accused the president of hurting her career after he chided her as a “real dummy” on Twitter. Trump’s ire had been stirred after Jacobus suggested in January, 2016 that he skipped a GOP primary debate in Iowa because he was a “bad debater.”

“I have been trashed and ruined on Twitter,” she told the New York Times a month later in a sympathetic piece documenting the then-still relatively new phenomenon of Trump’s Twitter hostility.

===

self correction?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/two-big-news-outlets-express-regret-after-letting-trump-officials-lie/

although President Donald Trump often rails against the mainstream media and insists that countless journalists are out to get him, he and his officials will manipulate or deceive major news outlets whenever they can get away with it. This week, two such outlets have apologized for letting Trump officials get away with lying: USA Today and National Public Radio.

Earlier this week, USA Today published an op-ed by Peter Navarro — one of Trump’s top economic advisers — that claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly been wrong about the coronavirus pandemic. But Bill Sternberg, USA Today’s editorial page editor, is now saying that some of Navarro’s anti-Fauci claims don’t hold up when fact-checked.

According to Sternberg, “Several of Navarro’s criticisms of Fauci — on the China travel restrictions, the risk from the coronavirus and falling mortality rates — were misleading or lacked context. As such, Navarro’s op-ed did not meet USA Today’s fact-checking standards.”

USA Today’s Ledyard King cites some specific examples of things Navarro wrote that were inaccurate. For example, Navarro wrote:

In late January, when I was making the case on behalf of the president to take down the flights from China, Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

King, however, explains: “Trump and his supporters have touted the restrictions on travel from China as a travel ban, but the move stopped short of that. As Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters January 31, the country was denying entry to foreign nationals, ‘other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days.’ In addition, experts said there isn’t enough data to conclude the restrictions made a significant difference. A study in the journal Science found the various travel limitations across the globe helped slow the spread of the pandemic, but more was needed to contain it.”

Navarro also wrote:

When I was working feverishly on behalf of the president in February to help engineer the fastest industrial mobilization of the health care sector in our history, Fauci was still telling the public the China virus was low risk.

But according to King: “There’s no evidence of a large-scale effort by the Trump administration to mobilize supplies for the pandemic as early as February, although experts contend that a forceful response then would likely have limited the spread and saved lives. Trump said little in public about the virus during that time period and downplayed the threat.”

Meanwhile, on NPR’s website, Public Editor Kelly McBride criticized the outlet for letting Attorney General Bill Barr get away with lying during a “Morning Edition” segment that aired on June 26 and was hosted by reporter Steve Inskeep. That day, McBride writes, NPR listeners “heard U.S. Attorney General Barr falsely declare that mail-in ballots will jeopardize the security of the upcoming presidential election.”

Barr told NPR:

There’s so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed. I think it would be very bad. But one of the things I mentioned would be the possibility of counterfeiting.

According to McBride, the claim that mail-in voting promotes fraud is contradicted by “extensive reporting — including by NPR before Inskeep’s interview — fact-checking and academic research. The overwhelming consensus is that there’s no credible evidence that counterfeit mail-in ballots have posed any substantial threat to election security.”

“I felt it was such a ridiculous set of claims because he clearly didn’t know what he was talking about,” said Charles Stewart, a political science professor at MIT, in response to Barr’s claim that ballots could be stolen from mailboxes and counterfeited on a large scale and argued,

McBride writes: “I agree with the audience members who have cried foul at how this was presented. While some would argue that when a powerful government (official) offers an outrageous point, listeners should get to hear it, this interview made it too easy for those listeners to come away with an incomplete understanding — or even believing that Barr’s widely debunked statement is a credible concern.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/dear-mainstream-media-you-dont-have-to-both-sides-trumps-bleach-injection-suggestion-its-bad-for-you-the-end/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/obama-closed-an-agency-that-accredited-a-university-with-no-faculty-or-students-then-betsy-devos-saved-it/

no lnx

Obama closed an agency that accredited a ‘university’ with no faculty or students. Then Betsy DeVos saved it

Written by Daily Kos February 16, 2020

If you have never heard of Reagan National University, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, you’re not alone. But like many small colleges you’ve never heard of, this one boasted (at least until this month) full accreditation as sanctioned by the federal government.

There’s just one small problem.

By all appearances, at present it has no students, no faculty and no classrooms.

As an investigation for USA Today by Chris Quintana and Shelly Conlon found, this institution of higher learning was accredited by the Department of Education under the auspices of Trump-appointed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Or more precisely, it was accredited by an “approved” and sanctioned agency of DOE with a track record so dismal that, back in the good old days (known as the “Obama administration”) when the federal government was actually being run by competent people who worked for the interests of American ciitizens, it had been summarily shuttered and put out to pasture.

The agency in question, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools, has a history of approving questionable colleges, with devastating consequences. It accredited ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges and Brightwood College, massive for-profit universities whose sudden closures last decade left thousands of students without degrees and undermined the value of the education of those who did graduate. Those closures led President Barack Obama’s Education Department to strip ACICS’ powers in 2016.

After a Federal Judge ruled that the Obama Administration had failed to consider a substantial number of documents that ACICS had submitted to appeal its closure, DOE was ordered to reconsider its decision, which it did. DOE career employees again found that ACICS failed to meet appropriate standards in its accreditation process.

But by then Trump acolyte and billionaire-by-marriage Betsy DeVos, who, following standard Trump-appointee procedure, was proceeding to reverse every single action taken by the prior administration, no matter how sensible or helpful to the American people, had begun to remake the Department. DeVos reinstated the ACICS agency despite its horrid past record of promoting colleges that exist solely to rip off American students (usually poorer ones and disproportionately students of color).

Since its short-lived disbandment, the agency had lost many colleges as “members” and, as Quintana and Conlon note, lost their “membership fees” as well. It needed money, and fast. So, apparently it was time for some quick calls to those “institutes of higher learning” out there.

Accreditation is the key to obtaining federal grant and loan money for students who want to attend college. Of course, that money then goes straight to the “accredited” college. But as USA Today found out, “Reagan National University” is a very strange college. To begin with, when the reporters attempted to learn more about the college itself, its website links were all dead. They still are.

Adding further to the mystery, “[n]o students or graduates could be found on LinkedIn or Facebook.”

When USA Today tried to contact faculty from this so-called college, they could find none. People whose names were listed on the “college’s” website swore they’d never heard of or taught at Reagan National University. Other names had absolutely no internet history, something quite unusual for academics. Phone calls to the University ended in curtly disconnected lines. Attempts to physically visit the school were similarly unavailing, yielding locked offices. Peering through the window, a vacuum cleaner and some insulation were visible.

As the USA Today investigation found, ACICS specializes in accrediting “for profit” colleges, the same ones notorious for ripping off students with phony promises of inflated job prospects and providing worthless degrees. But since the Obama administration shut it down, its members have dwindled from 290 in 2016 to 63 at present. ACICS told USA Today that Reagan had somehow met its stringent accreditation standards, but it refused to provide any details on how that may have occurred.

Michelle Edwards, CEO and president of ACICS, defended the council’s accreditation process in emails this month to USA TODAY. ACICS first accredited Reagan in 2017, though Edwards said the university had to address some areas where it was initially out of compliance. She declined to say what those areas were.

But hey, ACICS pulled out all the stops to get Reagan National U. up to snuff! In January 2019, it sent an (apparently) sternly worded letter to its accredited so-called college, informing Reagan that its job placement rate was a whopping 0%. Of course, the agency’s standard procedure provided a window of time for an institution to “show cause” why its accreditation should not be pulled in such an instance. For Reagan, that “window” expired in May, 2019. According to the agency CEO, “Reagan” provided some sort of satisfactory information to ACICS (we’re not told what that was), and the “show cause” order was lifted.

But in December, 2019, ACICS really laid the hammer down.

This time accreditors raised concerns about the language in a course catalog and the university’s grading system. It also hinted at more existential issues, such as a lack of evidence of a qualified person to run the business programs. And the computer science program didn’t have the materials necessary to teach.

It’s not clear who ACICS was talking to at “Reagan,” if they were actually talking to anyone at all. This entire shoddy episode reeks of either purposeful negligence or something worse. As Antoinette Flores, with the Center for American Progress who studies accreditation asks, how could this agency possibly have accredited a “school” with no faculty and no students?: “You accredited this institution. How did you miss this?”

In February of 2020, while USA Today was conducting its investigation, “Reagan National University” voluntarily withdrew its accreditation.

The USA Today investigation found something that provides a clue to exactly what “Reagan National University” is. It seems that in 2011, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement visited another questionable institution, called the “University of Northern Virginia” on “suspicions” that it was operating to exploit the issuance of visas through legal loopholes for foreign visitors rather than acting as an actual educational institution. That university was shut down by the state of Virginia because of its lack of accreditation in 2013, but popped up again, listing an address in South Dakota—the same address used by “Reagan National” in its corporate filings. It even listed the name of its agent as “Xianhua Fan”, seemingly the same name as Reagan’s president (in its business filings spelled as “Xuanhua Fan,” although the official “website” listed president of the University was a fellow named “Harold Harris”).

South Dakota, as the authors of the USA Today article point out, is probably not the ideal place to go to college: “State officials merely ask colleges whether an accrediting group has approved them — they don’t independently hold universities accountable.”

If it seems that all of this should have been obvious to ACICS, the agency DeVos stepped in to save, it should. The article describes the many criticisms and problems that agency has, including denial of recognition by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, a university-member body that sets stringent standards for accreditation.

But ultimately, as the article notes, this is all traceable back to DeVos and the Trump administration philosophy of rolling back every regulation in favor of business interests, no matter who is harmed in the process.

The education secretary wants to cut back the rules governing accreditation. Fewer regulations could allow colleges to implement new training programs swiftly to fill holes in the workforce, she says — an approach cheered by for-profit colleges like the ones accredited by ACICS.

Critics argue these rollbacks will make it easier for shoddy or predatory institutions to take advantage of students. They have pointed to the high-profile closures of several for-profit colleges over the past decade as a need for more regulations to protect students, rather than fewer.

What this all boils down to has nothing to do with learning or “education,” and everything to do with political campaign contributions from the “for-profit” college mill industry and lining the pockets of the investors that fund such scam schools. As noted by Jeff Bryant of the Campaign for America’s future,”The favors Trump and DeVos are granting to the for-profit college industry reflect the generosity of campaign contributions the sector has generally showered on Republicans, especially since the advent of the regulatory constrains issued in the Obama years.”

And whether those colleges actually have any faculty or students, or whether they even can provide degrees, is apparently not a major concern.

https://www.mediamatters.org/trump-impeachment-inquiry/major-news-organizations-amplify-trumps-lie-he-barely-knows-his-hand

sondland impeach politico usatoday

gannett

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-democracy-and-journalism-as-us-newspaper-giants-announce-1-4-billion-merger/

bannon

"The mainstream is going to be squeezed again," Goodwin predicted, noting that issues such as Europe's refugee crisis and cultural and economic changes brought about by years of immigration are still pushing many voters to the right.

In fact, arecent study by Washington-based Pew Research found that a third to a half of Europeans are wary of global engagement no matter how it is defined. In Britain, it’s 52 percent, the exact percentage who voted for Brexit. In Greece, it’s 83 percent.

In the U.S., 57 percent feel this way, according to the study.

In early December,, anti-government protesters in France who are angry with President Emmanuel Macron for what they claim are a range of policies that favor the wealthy over the working class, vowed to continue weeks of demonstrations even though Macron’s cabinet walked back a planned fuel-tax increase, a hot-button issue. This week, Macron raised France's minimum wage to appease protesters.

"This is springing up on a planetary basis," said Bannon, referring to interest in the populism movement he has done so much to publicize. "Whether I'm speaking to guys in Italy, men and women in France, or in Switzerland, it's the same audience. Same working-class audience as in New Mexico or Texas or wherever."

In the interview, Bannon accused the media, including USA TODAY, of being "virulently anti-Trump," of being "elitist" and of "atrocious coverage" that was already failing to recognize, among other things, that the European parliamentary elections in May would be the "next big move" or test for populism after Trump's election in 2016.

Throughout, he oscillated between being personable and aggressively accusatory.

"You media guys are all phony, lazy and dumb," he said. "And I want that in the article."

Bannon abruptly ended the interview because he needed to travel to Oxford to take part in the debate at the university's student union, a prestigious chamber that dates to 1823 and has hosted numerous world leaders and well-known public figures. Asked by USA TODAY whether he would be dressing up for the occasion and whether a populist would feel at home there, Bannon said: "Dude, I may not even wear socks."

===

Real Point of Trump's USA Today Op-Ed Was to Threaten His Enemies With Violence

Trump’s Fact-Free Op-Ed Trashing Universal Health Care Made Headlines — But Here’s the Real '$660 Million Hurdle'

https://www.alternet.org/americans-outraged-after-usa-today-publishes-trump-op-ed-filled-lies-and-dangerous-rhetoric

...Trump's op-ed, titled "Democrats 'Medicare for All' plan will demolish promises to seniors," starts with that lie and keeps them coming.

"The Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this," is the subtitle.

It gets worse.

"The truth is that the centrist Democratic Party is dead. The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela," Trump writes.

Again, many reputable news outlet would never have allowed that lie to be published.

And he makes this astonishingly false claim:Trump also falsely talks about "Democrats' absolute commitment to end enforcement of our immigration laws by abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That means millions more would cross our borders illegally and take advantage of health care paid for by American taxpayers."

"As a candidate, I promised that we would protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions and create new health care insurance options that would lower premiums. I have kept that promise, and we are now seeing health insurance premiums coming down."

Trump currently is backing legislation and a court battle to remove the ObamaCare requirement that bans insurance companies from refusing to cover or charging more for coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And health insurance premiums are going up, in large part directly asa result of Trump's intentional acts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Trump also makes this false claim:

The Washington Post's Fact Checker offered this response:"In practice, the Democratic Party’s so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats' plan, today’s Medicare would be forced to die."

How can @usatoday allow Trump tp publish an article with documented falsehoods? https://t.co/akDAGCWoRN via @usatoday

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) October 10, 2018

As the Toronto Star's Daniel Dale notes, USA Today, which has 3.66 million followers, is also blasting out tweets like this, not even making clear that these are lies:

.@usatodayopinion: Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this. https://t.co/aVqE7oxDj3

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) October 10, 2018

Here's how some others are responding on Twitter:

Any serious outlet running an op-ed from a serial liar like Trump, as is, without any fact check, should be ashamed of themselves. @USATODAY, this is embarrassing and a dereliction of duty. Holy crap.https://t.co/BziaGmAWN0

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) October 10, 2018

Trump's USA Today piece works a lot better if you say, "Blow me" out loud after every sentence you read. https://t.co/1v3g5BEtt6

— The Rude Pundit (@rudepundit) October 10, 2018

USA Today not only published a White House press release disguised as an “op-ed by Donald Trump,” it is using its Twitter account to blast out the article’s lies to 3.6 million followers. https://t.co/5qpjfDOWHh

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 10, 2018

Call me naive, but I remain shocked that a U.S. President would write something so absurdly dishonest & preposterous >> "The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela"

(Also shocked USAToday publishes such BS)https://t.co/yqziz8f141

— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) October 10, 2018

Looking forward to your complete fact check on this massive ball of shit-covered lies...

— Jerry Burke (@aqualad08) October 10, 2018

This is not an op-ed. If you are going to simply publish any propaganda sent your way, perhaps you could point out the lies.

— My Moon Day (@mymoonday) October 10, 2018

This is wholly inappropriate. @USATODAY why are you publishing state propaganda?

— Southern Highlander (@nikwasi) October 10, 2018

And just like that @USATODAY lost all credibility as a legitimate news source.

— Stevie Valle (@_stevienotnicks) October 10, 2018

USA Today published an op-ed allegedly written by Donald Trump. The piece is riddled with lies. The op-ed is filled with brazenly false claims about what a Medicare for All system would actually do. Claims about slashing Medicare or removing coverage are just nonsense: The entire goal of Medicare for All is to give everyone access to the great coverage that people with Medicare currently enjoy, instead of leaving those decisions to health insurance providers. Everyone knows this system works best: To this day, even Trump talks about how much cheaper health care is in Canada, which has a single-payer system somewhat similar to Medicare for All.

But none of this detail made it into the op-ed. Instead, USA Today just handed over the paper and its social media accounts to broadcast Trump's lies. And the paper did not even bother to fact-check the op-ed before publishing it. As Matt Gertz put it, “It is simply unbelievable, at this late date, that USA Today’s editorial page editors are unaware that the president will lie to their readers if they give him the opportunity -- and it’s appalling that they failed to fact-check the piece after its submission. And yet, that’s exactly what they did.”

delaware online is subside of usatoday, so is jackson sun

http://www.jacksonsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/05/24/trump-should-keep-his-promise-cancel-obama-climate-deal/339579001/

kerpin

One of the central themes of President Donald Trump’s campaign was the need to extricate the United States from international agreements that hurt American jobs and unfairly disadvantage American companies versus foreign competitors.

Another major theme was the promise to reverse Obama’s regulatory power grabs that dramatically expanded government control over our lives without the approval of Congress.

Those two themes came together in a very concrete promise when Trump said: “We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”

So why hasn’t it happened yet? Public reports indicate there is an ongoing pitched battle between the president’s top advisers on whether he should keep his campaign promise or abandon it. My own private sources in the administration believe the promise-breakers may be gaining the upper hand.

Their argument is America can remain in the agreement while revising its draconian emissions reduction goals to “keep a seat at the table.” Bad idea.

The Paris treaty effectively bans coal-fired power plants in the United States – while China has 368 coal plants under construction and more than 800 in the planning stage.

India’s coal production under the deal is allowed to double by 2020 – and they are likely to have emissions much higher than what they promised. Even Europe is allowed to build coal plants.

It forces Americans to endure painful cuts while the rest of the world continues with business as usual.

Even worse, American taxpayers will be forced to cough up $100 billion in climate-related foreign aid by 2020, with the promise of much more to follow.

As Trump observed on the stump: “President Obama entered the United States into the Paris Climate Accords – unilaterally, and without the permission of Congress. This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use right here in America.”

The idea we could adjust how draconian the cuts are and remain in the agreement depends on a dicey matter of legal interpretation.

Article 4.11 of the Paris treaty says “A party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhancing its level of ambition.”

Is easing off theenergy rationingby allowing higher emissions enhancing ambition? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Moreover, with the EPA undertaking an effort to reverse Obama-era regulations designed to make electricity prices skyrocket via draconian emissions cuts, accepting the validity of the Paris agreement will hand environmentalist groups and state attorneys general a powerful weapon that could derail the entire deregulatory effort.

State Department lawyers insist these concerns can be ignored. White House Counsel Don McGahn reportedly disagrees and sees these as real vulnerabilities – and who can doubt that the environmentalists and liberal state AGs are likely to find the most anti-Trump judges they can to see things their way?

Even if the agreement could be reconfigured to lessen the burden of its cuts to American energy use, it would be a huge mistake to accept the legal legitimacy of Obama’s move to enter the United States into a treaty regime identical in form and structure to previous global warming treaties without the constitutionally required advice and consent of the Senate.

President Trump should keep his campaign promise and cancel the Paris treaty.

Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment and author of “Democracy Denied.” Email him at phil@americancommitment.org.

===

Conservative Op-Eds Argued Wrongly That China and India Are Not Taking Action

Right-wing op-eds falsely claimed that China, India and other developing nations were not committed to Paris goals.

In a syndicated column that appeared in USA Today and USA Today Network newspapers, Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment and a former vice president of Americans for Prosperity, wrote, "The Paris treaty effectively bans coal-fired power plants in the United States—while China has 368 coal plants under construction and more than 800 in the planning stage. India's coal production under the deal is allowed to double by 2020—and they are likely to have emissions much higher than what they promised." And in his anti-Paris op-ed in theBoston Herald, Loris wrote, "Developing nations want affordable, dependable energy to raise their standards of living, and countries such as India, China and Indonesia need to use a lot of coal to get there."

China and India are on pace to meet their emissions targets ahead of schedule.

The Washington Post recently reported that an analysis conducted by the Climate Action Tracker found that "China and India are on track to overachieve on their climate pledges" and quoted Bill Hare, CEO of the nonprofit science and policy institute Climate Analytics, saying that China and India "are going to slow the global growth in CO2 emissions significantly." A New York Times editorial discussing the same analysis noted, "The shift from fossil fuels has ... been much faster and more pronounced than most experts expected. China has reduced coal use for three years in a row and recently scrapped plans to build more than 100 coal power plants. Indian officials have estimated that country might no longer need to build new coal plants beyond those that are already under construction."

China and India are taking big steps to develop clean energy and scale back coal plants.

In January of this year, China announced that it plans to spend more than $360 billion through 2020 on renewable energy sources and is canceling plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants. Last year, India announced that it plans to get 57 percent of its total electricity capacity from renewable sources by 2027 and launch a $2 billion equity fund to boost renewable energy development. According to The Associated Press, a March report by the groups CoalSwarm, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace found that "construction starts for coal-fired plants in China and India were down by 62 percent in January from a year earlier while new facilities starting operation declined 29 percent." Additionally, a May 22 New York Times editorial noted, "Electric vehicle sales in China jumped 70 percent last year, thanks in large part to generous government incentives. India is much further behind in this area, but the country's minister of power said last month that all cars sold in the country should be electric by 2030.

Developing nations pushed for a strong Paris agreement and were "crucial" to its adoption.

Developing countries, including the least developed countries, were a key part of the "high ambition coalition" that called for tougher climate change policies and "was widely credited with ensuring the Paris meeting ended in agreement," according to Climate Change News. Far from pushing for a weak agreement and wanting leeway to burn coal, the developing nations have been insistent on the need for fast action to deal with climate change, and have sounded alarms about the role of corporations and lobbyists in UN climate negotiations, fearing that they might weaken emissions goals.

Developing nations committed to cutting emissions even though it's more difficult for them and they have less responsibility to do so.

The world's developing countries have emitted only a small proportion of the climate-warming gases that humans have sent into the atmosphere over the past 160 years, and so they're responsible for only a small proportion of the global warming the world is experiencing. And yet all but two of the world's developing nations signed onto the Paris agreement and submitted action plans, many of which experts said were ambitious. Yet developing countries face a tougher challenge reducing emissions than their wealthier counterparts do. As Robert Lempert of the RAND Corporation explained to the Chicago Tribune, "The richest countries have much of their economy in lower-emitting sectors. ... The U.S. can grow their economy and improve their quality of life without increasing energy use. But in developing countries, you can't do that."

Op-Eds Against the Agreement Pushed Climate Science Denial

Anti-Paris agreement op-eds spread climate science misinformation.

In an op-ed for The Washington Times, Princeton emeritus physics professor and climate denier William Happer wrote that the U.S. "should withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement," claiming, "For too long, well-meaning policymakers have been misled by propaganda, masquerading as science, that more atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will harm the planet ... More CO2 is not a pollutant but is a benefit to humanity." In an op-ed in The Hill, Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute attempted to undermine the scientific rationale behind the Paris agreement by disputing that human activity is the dominant cause of recent global warming.

Slate's Phil Plait: Claiming CO2 is not a pollutant is "ridiculous" and "in-your-face wrong."

In a Feb. 18 column, science journalist Phil Plait wrote in Slate that the frequently used climate-denier claim that CO2 is not a pollutant is "ridiculous," "in-your-face wrong" and a "typical denier distraction technique, trying to downplay or distract you from what's really going on." He summarized the overwhelming scientific consensus: While some carbon dioxide is necessary for plant life, burning fossil fuels and thus releasing excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is warming up the globe "too quickly for many living things to adapt." Carbon pollution is causing rapid changes to the Earth's climate, and, as Plait explained, that speed is the "danger; the rate at which we are heating the planet is unprecedented."

Humans are "by far" the dominant cause of global warming.

InsideClimate News reported in 2016 that "ninety to 100 percent of climate scientists agree that the planet is warming due to human activity, according to a peer-reviewed paper published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The study, called a 'consensus on consensus' synthesizes findings from prior published research." In 2013, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported, "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines "extremely likely" as having 95 to 100 percent probability. A 2009 letter signed by 18 U.S. scientific organizations stated that "greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver" of climate change. In a 2012 literature review for the blog Skeptical Science, Dana Nuccitelli laid out the overwhelming evidence that humans are the primary driver of climate change, writing, "A wide variety of statistical and physical approaches all arrived at the same conclusion: that humans are the dominant cause of the global warming over the past century, and particularly over the past 50 years. This robust scientific evidence is why there is a consensus among scientific experts that humans are the dominant cause of global warming."

Reposted with permission from our media associate Media Matters for America.

Fredreka Schouten of USA Today attacked by newsbusters AA

9/16

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/09/01/study-newspaper-opinion-pages-feature-science-denial-and-other-climate-change-misinformation/212700

The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post all published climate science denial and other scientifically inaccurate statements about climate change on their opinion pages over the last year and a half, while The New York Times avoided doing so, according to a new Media Mattersanalysis of those four newspapers. The Journal published by far the most opinion pieces misrepresenting climate science, while all three instances of climate science denial in the Post came from columns written by George Will. The Journal and USA Today also published numerous climate-related op-eds without disclosing the authors’ fossil fuel ties, while USA Today, the Post, and particularly the Journal frequently published some of the least credible voices on climate and energy issues.

Three Major Newspapers Published Climate Science Denial On Opinion Pages, Led By The Wall Street Journal

Analysis: Three Major Newspapers’ Opinion Pages Published Climate Science Denial And Other Antiscience Claims. Media Matters examined op-eds, editorials, and columns in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post from January 1, 2015, to August 31, 2016, to determine how often climate science denial and other false statements about climate science appeared on each newspaper’s opinion pages. We found that the Journal, the Post, and USA Todayall published climate science misinformation on their opinion pages, while theTimesavoided doing so. Unlike the Journaleditorial board,which has denied climate science, the editorial boards of the Times, the Post, and USA Today all recognize the scientific consensus around man-made climate change. But our analysis found that theTimeswas the only one of these newspapers that did not publish an op-ed or column containing climate science denial during this time period:{. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters,* [Climate Denial/Misinformation Spreadsheet:{; }:The New York Times:{, }:4/29/15:{; }:The Washington Post:{, }:7/21/15:{; }:USA Today:{, }:11/30/15:{]}:

1/16

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-windsor/i-tried-to-cover-the-secr_b_9126876.html

he Koch brothers' donor retreats are notoriously secretive affairs, but after my publishing of several hours of audio from their 2014 summer confab, the network began to bring select journalists behind its closed doors. With strings attached. Six media outlets gained access this year under the condition of not disclosing donor identities, while the Kochs enlisted hotel security staff and police officers to intimidate this reporter from exercising her First Amendment rights.

As Koch grand strategist Richard Fink sat in the Glo Lounge of the posh Renaissance Esmeralda Indian Wells resort in Palm Springson Thursday, I heard his communications staff report to him that Fredreka Schouten of USA Today was "prepped." Sure enough, just hours later, at 5 AM on Jan. 29, her piece went live on the USA Today site: "Koch brothers' new group will take on poverty, education."

That piece dutifully relayed Koch talking points about the $15 million the group, "Stand Together," is trying "to raise." The exclusive "first interview" about this new operation was just the kind of uncritical "earned media" the Koch team wanted by launching the group's website just as the Kochs gather with their billionaire buddies to discuss spending another nearly half a billion dollars in the 2016 election.

Schouten even adopted Koch rhetoric that the billionaires' money-raising effort to achieve their political ambitions was a "seminar." The story accepted all manner of Koch assertions and gloss as true and without acknowledging key facts to the contrary in many instances.

For example, it noted that the Kochs have been pushing for criminal justice reform, without noting that a key component of their agenda is to make it harder to prosecute corporate crimes, as Koch Industries and some of its employees had been charged with breaking environmental laws in the 1990s. Their general counsel, Mark Holden, admitted their interest in this reform stemmed from that prosecution over leaking tons of cancer-causing benzene.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that part of the Koch agenda just two weeks ago in which some Members expressed deep concerns about the effort to use the need to address the disproportionate mass incarceration of African Americans as a vehicle to let white-collar criminals off the hook.

It also favorably mentioned the Kochs' recent funding of the United Negro College Fund, without noting the strings the Kochs put on the scholarships and the role of Koch Industries in determining who is sufficiently supportive of their ideology to get the money.

It noted that the Kochs' Libre Initiative, which basically markets Koch kool-aid to Latinos, gave out holiday turkeys to some families--without noting how the group has come under wide criticism for peddling policies that hurt many Latino families like opposing increasing the minimum wage, opposing access to affordable health care, and undermining workers' rights.

It also portrayed concerns about the Kochs' secretive but enormous role in elections as partisan--saying they "face deep skepticism from Democrats"--even though polling consistently shows that Americans fromboth major political parties and independents are deeply concerned about the influence of special interests on our elections and super-majorities oppose the Citizens United decision that has helped unleash the Koch election machine.

It also uncritically quoted Bob Woodson, a black conservative who was an architect of George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, and who is working with the new group. He claimed the Koch brothers and the right-wing CEOs and trust-fund babies they gather are just "grass-roots rich people" and "not the kind of corporate elitists who boast all the time about their vacations in France." And it comes from a guy who claims the Kochs' "philosophy and operating principles [are] ... 100% compatible with the way we help the poor." That's some nice spin.

Meanwhile, the Koch family fortune is the biggest funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council and for more than twenty years Koch Industries has been a leader of ALEC, as it pushed bills to make it harder for Americans to vote (legislation that disproportionately affects impoverished Americans who rely on public transit), to repeal the minimum wage and stop any increase to it, to pre-empt local rent control laws, to oppose limits on ATM fees and interest charges on credit cards and payday loans, to impose a panoply of restrictions on food stamps and welfare aid, to privatize Medicaid in favor of Health Savings Accounts that cannot possibly cover costs for serious accidents or illnesses, and many more bills that hurt the poor.

The story also noted that David Koch's Americans for Prosperity group has been giving poor folks lessons on coupon cutting, without noting AFP's role in pushing other policies like ALEC bills that hurt poor Americans.

USA Today also put the story in its weekend edition, as the top story above the fold with a new, even more positive headline: "Kochs' new group aims to 'revitalize' society." This messaging is consistent with Richard Fink's stated goal to rebrand their free-market ideology as a "movement for well-being." For Fink, the man called "Charles Koch's brain," the prepping of USA Today by his team certainly paid dividends in positive press for the Koch operation.

While selecting a handful of reporters to come to their gathering on the condition that they not tell the American people which billionaires are there funding the Kochs' unprecedented amount of spending in the 2016 election cycle, Charles Koch claimed that they are not "some secret cabal." This the day after the Kochs deployed hotel security and local police officers to pressure this reporter to stop taking photos of the incoming conference attendees from a public sidewalk, despite my First Amendment right to do so. I asserted that right and asked for a clarification of the property line, so that I could comply with the full letter of the law.

After falsely claiming the sidewalk was private property and sending local police to intervene, the security team was forced to allow me to stand right next to the guest checkpoint and continue to photograph attendees. Soon thereafter, staffers moved the checkpoint 50 yards or so further into the property, where it is harder for a camera to see into stopped cars. (Video of this below.)

Meanwhile, inside the luxury resort, on that very same day the Kochs held a panel on the First Amendment featuring legal commentator Jeff Rosen, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, and a staff writer for the conservative National Review, David French.

Apparently the constitutional rights of the Kochs and their secretive billionaire cabal are the only ones that matter.

Disclosure: Lauren Windsor is also the executive director of American Family Voices, a non-profit organization that works on middle class economic issues, with a particular focus on Wall Street reform, money-in-politics, and climate change.

wiki

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982.^[2] The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it had previously held since 2003. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper has 1.8 million copies as of March 2012^[1] compared with The Wall Street Journal's 2.1 million^[1] though this figure includes the WSJ's 400,000 paid-for, online subscribers. USA Todayremains the widest circulated print newspaper in the United States. USA Today is distributed in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Canada and the United Kingdom. The newspaper has its headquarters in the Tysons Corner area of Fairfax County, Virginia.^[3] USA Today sells for US$2 in newsstands, although it is often found free at hotels and airports that distribute it to their customers.

Even though disparagement laws present a chilling threat to journalists, actual press coverage of new laws has been scant, tending to trivialize the issues with light-hearted commentary about "veggie hate crimes" or humorous wordplay. "Mind how you disparage asparagus or berate broccoli," advised the headline in the Los Angeles Times. "Don't bad-mouth that Brussel sprout. It could cost you," quipped USA Today.

Gannett Company, Inc. (NYSE: GCI) is a publicly traded media holding company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, near McLean.^[2][3] It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. Its assets include the national newspaper USA Today and the weekly USA Weekend. Its largest non-national newspaper is The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Arizona. Other significant newspapers include The Indianapolis Star, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, NY, The Des Moines Register, the Detroit Free Press and The News-Press in Fort Myers. Gannett owns 23 television stations through Gannett Broadcasting Inc.^[4] and is the largest group owner of NBC-affiliated stations.^[5] Gannett also holds substantial properties in digital media including PointRoll, BNQT Media Group,^[6] Planet Discover,^[7] Ripple6^[8] and ShopLocal through Gannett Digital.